Photograph
by MadameCissy
Summary: Sharon and Rusty are looking through some old pictures, resulting in an interesting discovery [Mothership with mentions of Brenda]


**Couldn't let you have a birthday without a little bit of Mothership.  
**

 **#LoveU**

 **XXX  
**

"Rusty?!"

Sharon walked down the hallway towards her son's bedroom and knocked. She balanced the small box she was carrying on her hip and rolled her eyes when her son didn't answer her knock. She knocked again, a little more persistent this time.

"Yeah?" His voice sounded muffled from the other side of the door.

"What are you doing?" she asked when she opened the door and found Rusty sitting on the floor, his back turned towards her. Sharon entered the bedroom further and noticed Rusty was looking at something. Music was playing from his computer and she recognised it as one of Rusty's favourite bands. She'd never heard of them but their music was not bad at all.

The floor of Rusty's room was largely covered with boxes and paper; the result of Sharon's decision to go through several boxes of stuff she'd collected over the years. Every few years she would have a massive clear out and yesterday had been the day she decided it was time and now, just under twenty-four hours into what had turned into a rather challenging experience, there were half empty boxes in every room of the condo.

As she stepped into Rusty's room, Sharon saw several of Emily and Ricky's drawings and art works they had done while still in kindergarten splayed out across the floor. Ricky's attempt at drawing a giraffe was almost terrifying and in a way it was surprising he ever made it into the world of the graphic design and computers in the first place.

Seeing Emily's crooked handwriting and the way she'd written the 's' the wrong way around made Sharon feel warm inside. Those days had been some of the hardest of her life; raising two small children without Jack being there had left her with many sleepless nights but they'd come out the other end stronger as a family.

"What have you got there?" Sharon asked when Rusty didn't look up.

She walked around and saw that he was flipping through the pages of a photo album. She caught a glimpse of a smiling Ricky under a Christmas tree and she guessed he was about six or seven in that particular picture. His hair was still blonde and a little curly and he wore a green Christmas jumper with a snowman on it and held up a Christmas present with a beaming smile.

"Oh," Sharon sighed, a sense of nostalgia overwhelming her. "I haven't seen these in years."

Rusty looked up and saw the way his mother's eyes had lit up. "I didn't know you had these." He smiled and pointed at another picture on the same page. "I liked your hair back then."

Sharon looked at it and suppressed the urge to groan when she saw the picture Rusty was talking about. What was she thinking, having her hair cut into a sharp bob like that? And with a fringe no less!

"That's awful," she chuckled. "What was I thinking?"

Sharon sat down next to Rusty on the floor and her bare foot touched his knee. She reached for the album and placed it carefully in her lap. The picture at the top had been taken at some kind of party. She didn't know where or whose it was but she wore a dark blue dress and carried Emily on her hip. Ricky clung to her hand. In the background she spotted Jack surrounded by several men she didn't recognise.

It was a perfect capture of the person Jack was. Always in the background but never quite far away enouh to be overlooked. It had been like that for almost their entire marriage. He was always a figure in the background, too far away to be a part of her life but still close enough for her not to be able to forget him. He was there when he wanted to be there but he would always disappear again, leaving Sharon to pick up the pieces that his vanishing act ultimately left behind.

"Were you happy back then?" Rusty quietly asked and Sharon looked up. He was watching her with those big blue eyes and she instantly felt that he hoped she'd say she had been.

"I wasn't _un_ happy," she answered after a few moments of contemplation. She chose her words carefully but none of what she said was a lie. She hadn't been unhappy. She had simply not known anything else. "I had accepted that that was the road I was on and I had to see where it would lead me." She smiled and looked at Rusty. "As it so happened, it led me to you."

Rusty smiled back at her.

"Do you want to look at some more pictures?" Sharon asked. She realised it was very likely Rusty had very few, if any, pictures of himself as a child. Sharon Beck hadn't focused on capturing Rusty as he grew up and Sharon felt a sharp pang of guilt when she looked back down at the album in her lap. Rusty had missed out on so much, things other people seemed to take for granted. It just wasn't fair.

"Are there any more pictures of you with short hair?" Rusty grinned and she went to swipe his hand away when he reached for the photo album. "Because I'm definitely up for that."

"If you're lucky you'll even find one or two of me with those horrible eighties shoulder pads," Sharon answered.

"You wore those?!" Rusty looked horrified.

"Everyone did!" Sharon countered. "It was fashionable back then."

"Not the leg warmers though, right?"

Sharon just pursed her lips but didn't answer, opting to turn the page instead. Rusty just laughed, clearly amused by the thought of his mother wearing typical eighties clothes.

The next picture Sharon saw had captured Emily during one of her first dance classes. She looked so young, with her brown hair neatly braided and wearing black tights and a pink tutu. Sharon guessed she was about eight. And now she was a full-fledged ballerina who had danced in some of the most famous productions. Emily had come a long way since that first lesson.

Sharon tore her eyes away from her daughter's face to find Rusty looking at her and she readjusted her thought from moments earlier; they had _all_ come a long way.

Rusty picked up another photo album from the floor and went to open it. As he turned the first page, a photo slipped out from in between the pages and landed upside down next to Sharon's feet. He reached for it before she did and picked it up, turning it over without thinking and recognised Sharon immediately.

The longer he looked the more he realised that this picture wasn't as old as the others. The person standing next to Sharon, their arms wrapped lovingly around Sharon's shoulders, smiled at the camera and Rusty only needed a second to recognise her.

"You and Brenda?" he asked as he turned the photo around and showed it to Sharon. "When was this?"

Sharon's heart skipped a beat and she reached for the photo. She looked at the frozen moment in time she now held in her hand and her mind immediately took her back to the afternoon on the beach that had led up this picture. She could still hear the sound of Brenda's laughter, could still taste the chocolate ice cream on her lips…

"I forgot about this," Sharon muttered, even if it wasn't true. She shook her head as if to somehow erase the memories that had come flooding back. It had been a long time but she hadn't forgotten.

"When was this?" Rusty asked again and he curiously eyed his mother up. He saw the way her eyes had glazed over. "I didn't know you and Brenda were friends."

"We're not," Sharon answered, her eyes still fixed on the picture. She could almost feel the sea breeze in her hair, could almost hear the sound of waves against the rocks. She still felt the stinging pain of loss and she swallowed. The lump in her throat didn't shift. "Not anymore."

Rusty watched as Sharon put the picture down. He had his own history with Brenda Leigh Johnson and he knew that Sharon did too but it seemed that it went deeper than he had first thought. "What happened?"

Sharon swallowed. How was she supposed to explain to him that things had become complicated between her and Brenda? That they'd found themselves tangled up in something that only knew one way out? How was she going to tell her son that they had made a mistake that had cost them both more than they'd ever thought it would?

Seeing a version of herself she didn't quite recognise anymore, with Brenda's arms wrapped around her neck, the blonde's head resting against her shoulder as she smiled, the happiness that glistened in both their eyes, hurt. It hurt because it felt like she was looking back at another life; a life she had left behind and had walked away from but still longed for.

"It's a long story," Sharon sighed, an echo of sadness lingering in her voice. She knew that she would have to tell him one day. He wasn't going to forget about this moment but she wasn't ready to talk about it right now. "But it's a story for another day."

She stood up and put the picture in one of the boxes. In the doorway she turned around and looked at her son. He was flipping through the pages of another photo album and she watched the joy that spread across his face as he studied each image and slowly gained a deeper insight into his mother's past.

They spent the remainder of the day sorting through more boxes and drove several of them to a goodwill place on the other side of town. They stopped for hamburgers on the way home and Sharon could tell that Rusty was dying to ask her about the picture but he said nothing. Not even when the drive home took them within three blocks of where Brenda used to live.

When Sharon switched on the light in her bedroom that night when she went to prepare for bed, she noticed the change in the room immediately. There, against the lamp on her bedside table, stood the picture of her and Brenda and she heaved a sigh as she picked it up.

Brenda looked up at the camera, smiling. The wind pulled at her blonde curls and Sharon could still smell the faint scent of Brenda's flowery perfume, could still feel Brenda's hands as they'd playfully slipped under her shirt as they kissed whilst the sun went down over Santa Monica Beach.

"I know you love her," Rusty said from the doorway and Sharon spun around, startled. "I didn't need a picture to see that." He smiled at her when he saw the way she clutched the picture. He cocked his head a little and suddenly he struck Sharon as so much older beyond his years. "And even if you think you can't tell me, maybe you should still admit it to yourself."

He turned around and left, closing the door behind him.

When she finally got into bed and went to switch off the light, Sharon looked at the picture one more time and for a moment considered putting it in the bottom drawer but changed her mind as soon as she picked it up and carefully placed it back against the lamp and then switched off the light.


End file.
